Blood and Thorns
by Kilerkki
Summary: Genma clutched scarlet stained hands to his belly and mouthed Raidou's name with lips dripping crimson... Genma has a wicked sense of humor. [Oneshot]


Blood and Thorns

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Written for all the other lonely genfic fans out there. And for those who, like myself, have spent the long lazy days of summer staining their fingers scarlet.

Special thanks to Raidou-san and Genma-niisan of Imamade Nandomo, for allowing me to 'borrow' their characterizations.

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It had been a very long day of a very long mission, and by the time they dropped their packs on the banks of a shallow stream Raidou was almost too tired to even think about traps or alarms, much less dinner. He sank to one knee on the streambank and dashed a handful of water over his unmasked face, then rubbed the wet hand around the back of his neck. He could almost feel the water evaporating as soon as it touched his steaming, sweat-soaked skin. The air buzzed with heat even though the sun was sinking huge and orange through the trees, and the cicadas kept up a constant thrum of sound that made everything seem at least ten degrees hotter.

"First thing I do back in Konoha," Raidou muttered, "is fall asleep in my bathtub. With the company of half a gallon of ice cubes and a note on my door forbidding anyone to disturb me for a week. Under pain of…disembowelment."

"Never seen you disembowel anyone yet," Genma drawled, cupping his hand to form a leaky sort of…cup. With his Panther-faced mask shoved to the side of his head and his disheveled hair clinging to his neck and face, damp with sweat, he looked about ready to pitch over the bank and float down the stream. Raidou pondered shoving him in—kneeling on the bank like that, it would barely take more than a tap—but that would probably initiate a water fight of the sort they were both far too tired to finish. Besides, they still had traps to set.

Groaning, Raidou shoved himself to his feet. Somehow he managed not to waver more than a little. Sweat ran down his chest and shoulders and stung the numerous small cuts he'd collected over the course of the mission, some almost healed and some still crusted with drying blood.

He watched Genma flick the senbon to the other corner of his mouth and sip gingerly from his cupped hand. He hadn't even noticed the senbon going in, but of course it must have happened as soon as Genma had tipped his mask back. Remove mask, insert senbon, chew happily, drive friends mad with wondering how you've managed to go so many years without severing your tongue. It was a routine Genma had perfected even before the tattoos on their left biceps stopped stinging.

Raidou scratched his own tattoo in absent thought; he'd caught a kunai there a few weeks ago and the healing scar itched like mad whenever he paid it any attention. They were a day's run away from Konoha's walls, he guessed, and none too soon; he was almost out of chakra and running almost entirely on soldier pills and willpower by now. And though soldier pills could darn well reanimate a corpse, two weeks of them had left him _feeling _pretty much like said corpse.

"We've got to set traps," he said at last, words just a little slurred by exhaustion. "I'll cover this side of the streambank…"

Genma made a sound like a disgruntled cat and stood, rolling his shoulders and flicking the senbon back to its usual spot in the right corner of his lips. "'f I don't come back in half an hour, don't bother comin' after me. Lemme rest in peace." He slogged across the shin-high stream, heaved himself up the other bank, and disappeared into the undergrowth.

Setting the traps was easy, if time-consuming; Raidou had done the same routine so many times that he probably could have trapped the perimeter of their camp-site in his sleep. He varied the traps a little just for excitement's sake and was back at the place where they'd dropped their packs within fifteen minutes, as the sun's last rays filtered through the trees to turn the water gold and scarlet. He sank down with his back to the bole of a tree, too tired to dig through his pack for the soldier pills and crumbs of energy bars that would constitute their dinner, too tired to even prop his eyelids open any longer. He didn't quite sleep, but he let the cicadas' harsh buzzing fade from his awareness as his breathing slowed and steadied and the sunset warmed his bare face...

A twig snapped on the other bank of the stream. Genma didn't snap twigs. Genma was an elite shinobi, an ANBU of Konoha, capable of moving as silently as a sun-beam—unless he was hurt. A surge of adrenaline Raidou hadn't known he had snapped his eyelids open, and he stared straight across the stream at his teammate.

His teammate who clutched scarlet-stained hands to his belly and mouthed Raidou's name with lips dripping crimson…

Raidou sprang to his feet. "Genma!"

"R-Raidou," Genma whispered, and stumbled another step forward. "'m sorry…"

Raidou reached out in horror, knowing that he was too late and that Genma was past saving—he'd even lost his _senbon, _dear gods…

"Sorry I ate most of the berries," Genma finished with a grin, and tossed a rich dark handful of blackberries across the stream. They hit Raidou's shoulders and chest and pattered around his feet, leaving little crimson stains where they'd exploded on impact.

His jaw dropped in mingled horror and fury. "_Genma, _I _swear—_"

"Hey, take it easy," Genma laughed, and threw another berry straight into Raidou's open mouth. "See, I saved you some!"

Raidou's glare was honed by years of service as a shinobi and heightened even more by the scars that pulled one side of his face into a melted parody of human skin. The glare he leveled at Genma had a sincere promise of pain in it. But it also necessitated him closing his mouth, and as he crushed the juicy berry on his tongue, he changed what he was going to say.

"For something like that," he growled, "you better have saved more than 'some'."

Genma grinned and produced a senbon studded with glistening ebony blackberries from behind his ear and a belt-pouch bulging with more fruit from behind his back. "Better than soldier-pills any day," he said.

Raidou had to agree.


End file.
